A Temporary Fix
by Lucinda M. H. Cheshir
Summary: Elsie Gianni had long been a fan of One Piece, but that didn't mean that she wanted to be a part of it!
1. Chapter 1

Elsie Gianni never enjoyed having to go grocery shopping on her own, but with a wad of her mother's cash in her purse, her phone turned up to max volume to be notified as soon as her wonderful boyfriend Lazlo texted her with the wonderful sound of a One Piece den-den-mushi, wearing an adorable black converse dress and her favourite pair of cherry-red high tops, Elsie didn't actually mind walking the three blocks down to Martin's for some emergency groceries. Even if it did mean that she'd have less time to watch episodes of her favourite anime ever: One Piece. Not that she'd been really watching it much lately anyway: what with her senior year of high school looming before her as well as college and the novelty of having her first-ever boyfriend, Elsie had been keeping fairly busy, too busy really to do anything more than read the weekly installments of the various mangas that she kept up-to-date with, the most prominent of which was, of course, One Piece.

But overall, Elsie was basically over the whole anime/manga phase, and since she'd even gone so far as to quit her job at the library to deal with all this schoolwork and college and boyfriend business.

"_Bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda- katcha._" Her phone sounded from the depths of her purse, and Elsie smiled. Den-den-mushi were the best, she decided, and, after looking both ways and walking quickly across the street to Martin's, she took her phone out of her purse and checked it. It wasn't from Lazlo, unfortunately, but almost as welcome as it: it was a text from Elsie's best friend Aida. Elsie unlocked her phone and replied to the text quickly: she needed to get the emergency stash of groceries quickly if she was going to get home in time for her mother to make delicious baked pasta for supper. Plus Elsie was really having a craving for some Starbucks and some thumbprint cookies.

_Aida: Have you finished the history assignment yet?_

_Elsie: Not yet... going to Martin's to get stuff for dinner. Haven't even looked at the stupid book yet, lol._

Elsie hurried into the supermarket and looked at the list her mother had given her: penne pasta, Paul Newman's tomato basil pasta sauce, Italian sausage, and pre-shredded mozzarella and provolone cheese. Easy enough, and her mother had definitely given her more money than necessary to buy just that. So thumbprint cookies and a Starbucks frappuccino were not out of the question. And failing that, there was always Elsie's own funds in the form of her credit card, but she didn't think that she would have to resort to using that.

In less than twenty minutes, Elsie was headed back out of the Martin's with a single plastic grocery bag suspended by its handles from the crook of her right arm while in her right hand she held a most delicious grande-sized strawberry frappuccino. Sipping it, she looked both ways and began to step into the street when she heard the familiar

"_Bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda- katcha._" Coming from her purse. Elsie smiled and blindly felt around in the bag. Maybe this time it would be a text from Lazlo. That would be very nice: since getting him to finally agree to be her boyfriend, Elsie's thoughts seemed to be running on rather a monopoly of fluffy thoughts about Lazlo. She tried not to go overboard with her thoughts, but it was so darn hard to do that whenever she saw something that she thought he'd probably enjoy, or the fact that she kept inexplicably remembering how very good he smelled. She knew that she tended to hyper-romanticize things, especially things like this, but what could she expect, brought up reading fairy tales where beautiful princesses always find their true loves and other such similar stories?

When she was about halfway across the street and there were still no cars in sight, Elsie finally found her phone and pulled it out, looking down at it and smiling. It was from Lazlo. Finally he'd stopped playing videogames and/or watching Netflix long enough to reply to her (very clever) earlier text. She hoped that he'd found her joke about hobbits hysterical, but it was always so draining trying to sound clever with each new text. At least Lazlo always knew what she meant, even when she sounded vaguely stupid. He understood what it was like to be a disorganized writer with hundreds of (very noisy) little people living in his head and demanding attention. Honestly, characters were so high-maintenance.

Her phone buzzed again and the den-den-mushi made its familiar call. Lazlo had sent her another message! Wondering what she had done to deserve such good fortune, Elsie began to unlock her phone to see what it was he was texting her about. She didn't even realize that she had stopped in the middle of the street. Or that the lights had changed. Or that a large pickup truck was headed straight for her at a good twenty miles per hour...

But she most certainly noticed it when it hit her.

First the sharp shove came, then the impact with the asphalt. After a few stunned milliseconds, pain flooded Elsie's nervous system and her vision spun and began to fade. She could hear the screeching of brakes and panicked shouting, but it didn't really register with her what was actually happening. All she could think was _I hope that the cookies are okay. And my Starbucks._ And then her world went black.

**_Author's Notes: Ah, yes, the dreaded Mary Sue. Actually, I really hope not: but we shall see, now won't we? Anyway, this is just a stab I'm taking at writing something semi-realistic... This little universe of Elsie's is actually helping me deal with some of my real life crap, and as I hope you'll realize from reading this first chapter, there's absolutely no way that this will all take place in the One Piece world. However, some of it will. On another note, I'm not exactly sure how long this will end up, but I'm thinking that it will be pretty short, as far as the number of chapters goes._**

**_Peace out,_**

**_~Lucinda_**


	2. Chapter 2

Zoro was the first to notice the foreign objects that were falling from the sky, but this was only because one of them landed on his stomach as he was taking his customary afternoon nap.

The glass jar hurtled out of the clear blue sky at what was likely terminal velocity and landed squarely on Zoro's green haramaki before bouncing harmlessly off onto the grassy deck of the _Thousand Sunny_ and rolling for a few inches before coming to a stop.

Zoro grunted as the jar made impact and his good eye snapped open. _Are we under attack?_ Was Zoro's immediate thought, though upon spying the projectile, he scowled. _Tomato sauce._ It was probably the work of that damn curly-brow cook. So he was throwing perfectly innocent jars of sauce at Zoro now, hm? Zoro wouldn't put it past his rival to do that.

...But the more he actually thought about it, the more Zoro realized that this wasn't the cook's style. First and foremost, it was against the shitty cook's moral code to use food like this: it would probably be akin to the idea of him throwing one of the female members of the crew at Zoro, though probably a slightly less severe transgression. Second, it simply wasn't the cook's style to attack Zoro in his sleep. It wouldn't prove anything if he were to beat Zoro like that.

So where had the jar come from?

"Hey, what's this box?" Usopp's voice filtered over from across the deck, from where he was fishing with Luffy, Chopper, and Brook.

"It looks like food!" Luffy exclaimed, pouncing on the blue cardboard box and shaking it, rattling the contents.

Zoro stood, and, scooping up the jar of red sauce, strode over to his captain. "I found some, too." He announced, holding the jar for Luffy to see.

"Wow! It must be my lucky day!" Luffy laughed, snatching the jar from Zoro's hands before he could protest.

"Where is it coming from?" Usopp asked wonderingly. "Look, there's something else." He walked over to the object and picked it up. "Italian Sausage," he read the label wonderingly.

"Luffy-san, Zoro-san, Usopp-san, don't look now, but I think I see more strange objects falling from the sky." Brook interjected, pointing upwards at a few black specks far above the _Sunny_ with one skeletal finger. "Though I have no eyes to see! Yohohoho! Skull joke!"

"You're right." Zoro said, ignoring his fellow swordsman's ridiculous (and not very funny, in Zoro's opinion,) joke.

"IT'S RAINING FOOD!" Luffy shouted joyously at top volume. "THE NEW WORLD IS SO AWESOME!"

"Somehow I don't think that's the case." Usopp said.

"What do you think it is, Usopp?" Chopper asked, abandoning his fishing rod as well to join the conversation.

Usopp squinted up at the specks in the sky, trying to think up a possible explanation. Then he noticed something. "Hm?" he pulled his sniper goggles up to his eyes to get a better look.

"Oi, losers! Caught anything yet?" Sanji poked his head out of the kitchen to yell at the four who were supposed to be fishing for dinner. Seeing them all on the deck, plus the idiot marimo swordsman, Sanji couldn't help but be irritated. "What the hell are you idiots doing?!" He shouted, and swung over the railing to join the five on deck and give them a good kicking, including the marimo, who was doubtless the instigator of this flagrant laziness.

"I think that's... a girl... falling from the sky..." Usopp said, in awed disbelief, and that was all it took for Sanji to completely forget about kicking some sense into those five as he looked up into the sky as well.

"Holy shit, the sniper's actually telling the truth! There is a lady up there!" Sanji was shocked at this development, but not too shocked to project the path in which the mysterious falling girl was falling. It wasn't good.

"She's going to fall into the sea!" Usopp yelled, apparently thinking along the same lines as Sanji.

"Do you think this is her food, Luffy-san?" Brook asked, apparently ignoring the disaster that was at hand.

"Maybe if it is she'll share it with me!" Luffy said cheerfully.

"If she survives the fall." Zoro pointed out. Sanji scoffed. While those three were busy having a calm discussion, a lady was about to die a horrible death! Well, not if Sanji had anything to say about it. He hadn't spent two horrible years in Hell just to let an innocent lady plunge to her death in the cold, unforgiving depths of the New World waters.

"Sky walk!" he shouted, and launched off of the deck, running as quickly as he could through the air, up to the ever-nearing figure until...

Sanji caught the girl neatly in his arms, slipping down several yards before regaining his balance and stopping himself so that he hung in the air. He was immediately rewarded for his chivalry by getting a strange pinkish and extremely cold drink spilled all over his head as it sped downwards. But he didn't mind: he was also being rewarded with a vision of loveliness. Well, more or less. Certainly, she wasn't nearly the beauty that Sanji's beloved Nami-san and Robin-chan were, but the girl he had saved wasn't bad looking either. Her wavy dark brown hair spilled in unruly curls over her face, loose strands escaping from the twin braids she wore tucked behind her ears. A pair of fragile-looking rectangular glasses were perched on the girl's nose, and behind them, her eyes were closed, as though she was sleeping peacefully. Odd jewelry clinked together at the girl's neck, and her short black dress ruffled in the breeze that made the girl shiver in her sleep. Aware of her discomfort, Sanji hugged the lady closer to him, willing that his warmth would keep her not quite slight enough to be called slight form from shivering again as he walked back down to the deck.

"Nice work, Sanji!" Luffy yelled, grinning and stretching his arms out above him, the blue box of pasta in one hand and the jar of tomato basil sauce in the other. "Now we can ask her to share her food with us!"

"I think a better question to ask her is why she was falling from the sky." Zoro pointed out as they watched Sanji alight on the grassy deck and carefully lay the strange girl down.

Chopper took one look at her before he began to screech for a doctor, momentarily forgetting that that was his own job.

He was fairly justified in this reaction: after all, the left side of the girl's face was a bloodied mess, along with her left arm, though the wounds seemed to be mostly superficial scrapes. However, dark purple, very serious looking bruises had blossomed on both arms, and were probably the result of some sort of large object crashing into the girl at high speed.

"Doctor! We need a doctor!" Chopper shrieked in panic.

Sanji kicked him lightly in order to get him to stop hyperventilating. "That's you, Chopper. Get to work." He frowned at the girl who lay unconscious on the _Sunny's_ deck. Just a moment before, he could have sworn that her face had been angelic and completely unmarred by any of the injuries that now covered it.

"Oh! Yeah!" Chopper recollected his wits and pulled his medicine bag off of his tiny shoulders. "Let's see... These should stop the bleeding, and this will be good for the pain..." He mumbled to himself, then turned to the rest. "Would one of you go and get some bandages out of the infirmary?"

Sanji sprang to attention. "Wait just a moment, Chopper and I'll be back with the bandages you need to help this lady!" He promptly dashed off to belowdecks.

"What's all that noise?" came a feminine voice rather harshly from the mikan deck where she and the other female member of the crew had been tending to their plants.

"Some girl fell from the sky!" Luffy looked up at Nami and Robin, looking curiously down at them from over the railing, and grinned.

"From the sky?" Robin repeated, and Nami looked upwards.

"I didn't notice any sky islands floating by. Are you guys sure of this?" she said dubiously.

"The love-cook had to use that 'sky-walk' thing of his to run up and catch her. Didn't you notice?" Zoro said infuriatingly. Nami scowled at him.

"Excuse me for not noticing every little thing you boys do down there when I'm trying to have a decent conversation with Robin." She snapped back.

"Whoa, these glasses sure are weird!" Luffy grinned obliviously, temporarily abandoning the mysterious food and snatching the glasses off of the unconscious girl's face and placing them on his own nose. "Everything's all blurry! I wonder how she can see anything with these on!"

"Luffy, that's probably not the best idea-" Usopp began as Luffy began hopping around rather drunkenly, his world distorted by the strong prescription lenses.

"Hey, Usopp! You're a big blob! You look funny!" Luffy grinned, then turned to his musician. "And Brook! You're a big blob, too!" the captain laughed.

"Luffy put those glasses down before you break them!" Nami ordered as she made her way down the stairs. "She probably can't see without them if everything's so blurry for you."

"But I'm having _fun_, Nami!" Luffy whined.

Nami was about to answer firmly that Luffy seemed to have a natural talent for breaking things, when the Sunny lurched suddenly, making a good number of the crew lose their footing, including Luffy, who fell flat on his face.

"Oi, Franky! What's all that about?!" Nami picked herself up off of the lawn deck and turned towards the helm, where the cyborg seemed to be having some difficulty with the wheel.

"Weather change, I think, Nami-sis!" he yelled back. "Get up here!"

"Okay!" Nami called, and spared a glance at the rest of the crew, who were all picking themselves up as well. "Get ready for trouble, everyone." She ordered, and headed up to the helm to help Franky navigate.

"I'm back!" Sanji announced his presence loudly as he burst from the door to belowdecks, arms full of clean white bandages. "What was that lurch about just now?"

"The weather is changing again, Sanji-san." Brook explained readily. "At least, that's what Nami-san and Franky-san told us."

"Thank you, Sanji." Chopper nodded, taking the bandages Sanji had fetched for him, and began expertly wrapping the worst of the mysterious falling girl's wounds. He worked quickly, because Chopper knew that changing weather would likely mean that the seas would be rough and dangerous for a person in a delicate condition, such as this girl. When he had finished the preliminary bandages, Chopper stood slightly away from her and said "Heavy Point!" Immediately, his tiny form grew and shifted into a rather monstrous bipedal creature. "I'll take her to the sick bay and keep an eye on her." Chopper announced, picking his patient up easily and cradling her gently in his arms, so as not to injure her further. "Luffy, she's going to need her glasses when she wakes up, so give them back."

Luffy, who had risen only to his knees, didn't seem to be hearing any of the conversation that was going on around him.

"Oi, Luffy, what is it?" Zoro asked, sensing something was wrong.

Luffy looked up, his expression horrified, and wordlessly held up the mangled pair of glasses.

"Luffy you idiot!" Sanji screeched immediately, kicking his captain on his rubber head with full force. "How could you break her glasses?!"

"I d-didn't mean to!" Luffy blubbered, eyes and nose running. "Oi, Usopp, can you fix them?" Luffy turned to the mechanically minded sniper and offered him the pieces of the broken glasses.

Usopp took them and inspected them pragmatically. "Maybe. It's going to take some time- WHICH WE DON'T HAVE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE SEA'S CHANGING! PAY ATTENTION, LUFFY!"

"Yosh! I owe you one, Usopp!" Luffy nodded, his tears stemming themselves a little too easily.

Chopper rolled his eyes and headed as quickly as he dared towards his infirmary.

"Hey everybody, brace yourselves!" Nami yelled from the helm.


	3. Chapter 3

As the ship lurched again, Chopper very nearly fell over on his way to the infirmary. For a split second, he was terrified that he'd fall over in the corridor, and quite possibly injure the strange girl more than she already was. Fearing the worst, he squeezed his eyes shut, only to open them a moment later to discover that Robin had caught him. Or at least, ten or twenty arms that belonged to Robin and had suddenly bloomed from the walls and floor of the hallway had caught him. Robin herself was several feet behind him and had her arms crossed in front of her, Osiris-style.

"Thanks, Robin." Chopper smiled as he regained his balance and checked his patient to see if she was okay. The mysterious girl certainly didn't look any the worse for wear, though this was hardly saying anything, as she was still bleeding profusely.

"You're welcome, Chopper." Robin smiled back. Then she glanced down at the girl who had fallen from the sky. "As for her, I think it's advisable to try and find out who she is exactly before she heals."

Chopper blinked at Robin, nonplussed. "How do you mean?"

Robin pointed to the black bag that had been slung across the girl's shoulder. "By looking through the contents of that. May I?"

Chopper still looked confused, but nodded. "Okay, just wait until I set her down." He hurried the few steps to the infirmary, followed closely by Robin.

The moment that he set the strange girl down on the medical examination table, Robin abducted the black leather purse.

Chopper glanced at her curiously. "Robin, how will her bag tell you about who she is?"

"It's not so much the bag itself as what possessions she carries with her. It's easy to glean much information from what's in this bag if you think like an archaeologist." Robin explained.

"I still don't really get it." Chopper admitted, and turned to focus his attention at the task on hand (or rather, hoof).

Robin smiled and seated herself out of the way at Chopper's research desk. "Well," She said, trying to think how to put her archaeological work in simple enough terms for the brilliant yet childlike reindeer doctor to understand, "If I look at what she has in her bag, it might give me clues to who she is: if she's a marine, or a pirate, or even just an innocent civilian. Clues like this photo identification tag."

Robin pulled out a plastic card attached to a grey lanyard with a square photograph that was unmistakably of the mysterious patient. To the left of the photo, in bold black type, was the name _**Gianni, Elsie**_, followed by a smaller _Grade 12_ below it, and at the bottom of the card, besides a mess of short black stripes of varying thickness and a meaningless string of numbers (Elsie's I.D. barcode) were the words _George Washington High School._

"You see, just from this tag I now know her name, her rank, and the name of the institution to which she belongs. Though I must admit that 'Gianni Elsie' is quite a curious name. Perhaps she is from a cloud island after all. That could be why her school is referred to in regards to its height." Robin mused, though Chopper had long past the point of being able to reply with any thought, so focused was he on his work.

"Now, what else is in here?" Robin asked herself, and began to empty the black leather purse of the rest of its contents. Laid out neatly before her in a matter of seconds were a sleek metal wallet containing more plastic cards and unfamiliar greenish bills, a small leather coin purse containing a modest amount of unfamiliar silver and copper coins, a rattling round pill box that held approximately six oblong red pills, several brightly coloured lozenges that looked and smelled like candies, a tube of chapstick, a small screwdriver, a paperback book titled _Treasure Island_ (something that Robin took quite a lot of interest in, being a professional pirate herself, not to mention rather a bookworm, and most confusingly of all, two sleek black boxes, each with a single button on its face: a sleek black button with a small white rectangle. With the possible exception of the strange black boxes, nothing in the purse looked remotely dangerous, and all signs pointed to this mysterious Gianni Elsie being an unlucky civilian.

Robin reported her findings at dinner, after things had calmed down on the weather front and they were all gathered in the galley, with the exception of Chopper who was still monitoring their guest's vital signs. The news was met with mixed reactions.

Sanji of course, was delighted to have a name by which to call his newfound fallen angel. "Ah, Elsie-_chwan_!" He sighed happily, deftly pounding Luffy in the noggin with a well-placed kick as the latter attempted to steal what was left of the former's squid-ink soaked spaghetti off of his plate.

Others took a less happy approach. "Well it certainly helps us that she's not a Marine, but she could just as easily be a World Government spy." Nami pointed out sensibly, if a bit pessimistically. "I don't think we should let our guard down quite yet."

"Yes, that would be a prudent course of action. What do you think, Luffy?" Robin turned to look at her youthful Captain, who was currently picking his nose while his head was still pinned to the table by Sanji's right heel.

He was uncharacteristically pensive for a moment, deep in thought. When he spoke, his voice was a bit muffled by the table. "If she's a spy does that mean that she won't share her food with us?"


	4. Chapter 4

Elsie awoke by degrees. _Is it morning already?_ She wondered, keeping her eyes shut. After a few seconds of silence as she listened for her alarm clock, Elsie shifted a little, intending to go back to sleep. However, as soon as she moved, pain shot through her body like wildfire and she couldn't help but gasp and open her eyes.

After the pain died down a little to a dull ache, Elsie felt calm enough to examine her surroundings. Everything was blurred, since she wasn't wearing her glasses, and she fully expected to see the yellow ceiling of her room above her. However, a completely foreign ceiling met her imperfect gaze, and she frowned. Squinting at it, she tried to think what ceiling it could be, but she honestly could not seem to place the plain wooden planks at all.

Quite suddenly, a large black blur that looked like a rabid dust bunny to Elsie's overactive imagination appeared some distance above her, nearly at the height of the ceiling. In the middle of the rabid dust bunny blur was the vague shape of a pale grinning face, vague enough for Elsie to take some time in deciphering what it really was, but precise enough for Elsie to realize that the rabid dust bunny was actually an overlarge afro hairstyle.

Elsie squinted up at the strange-looking person, trying to discern more features, other than the very sunken eyes, the skeletally small nose- _wait a minute_..._!_

The person opened his mouth and spoke in a loud, boisterous voice.

"_Yohohoho!_ Chopper-san, wake up! Your patient is awake! Incidentally," Suddenly the boisterous voice was replaced by a quiet, polite, and deadly serious tone. "Young lady, would you show me your panties, please?"

Elsie started to scream.

She didn't have a great go at it, unfortunately. The effort it took her simply to belt out one long, loud, wordless shriek was surprising: And really, for one with at the very least bruised but equally likely broken ribs (not to mention one who had never had a good scream in over ten years) it was impressive that Elsie managed to continue the noise for as long as she did- a solid fifteen seconds in all.

After she'd had a little time to think things over, Elsie had to admit that she was a little impressed with herself by being able to scream at all. Feeling adrenaline pumping through her, Elsie sat up, ignoring the pain, and scooted over as far away as she could from the skeleton man, her mind still going too fast to process what exactly was happening to her or where she was. All she could really think was a desperate wish that she had her glasses on, which was, of course, futile.

"Brook!" Scolded a much younger-sounding and significantly less creepy voice, after Elsie had run out of steam. "You scared her! All I asked you to do was help me keep an eye on her so I could get some rest, and now she's scared!"

"Is she? I must have spent too much time around screaming fans to be able to tell the difference, _yohoho! _Ahem, pardon me, young lady." The freakishly tall skeleton-man stood up straight, doffed his wide-brimmed hat, and bowed in polite apology. Elsie felt dizzy and sick, though the general pain did seem to be taking a back seat at the moment.

She took another deep, shaking, and terrified breath, with every intention of resuming her scream, when a very small person, about the size of a toddler, hopped up on a stool at her bedside and began to examine her. Only this person was covered in light brown fur, had antlers, and a blue nose below his innocent doey eyes.

So instead of screaming, even though she still felt that it would do her quite a bit of good, Elsie quieted down and asked a question, her voice a little hoarse.

"Are you... Tony Tony Chopper?"

Chopper looked up, his eyes suddenly shining. "You know who I am?! How?"

Dumbly, Elsie nodded. "I've seen your wanted poster." She added lamely, by way of explanation. It wasn't untrue: she did, after all have a facsimile of Chopper's, as well as all the other strawhats' wanted posters taped up on her closet door. "But... I'm dreaming. I... I can't be here, I was going to Martin's..." Feeling strangely lucid, Elsie stopped talking and pinched her arm as hard as she could. "Ow!" she yelped involuntarily, then looked around. Still seeing Chopper and Brook, both looking on with slightly concerned bemusement, she frowned, and pinched herself again, producing the same result. A third, fourth, and fifth attempt yielded no change, and finally, Elsie had to try and face whatever it was she had gotten herself into. "How am I here, though?"

"You fell from the sky yesterday afternoon." Brook explained matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, and you were all hurt, so I patched you up." Chopper added helpfully.

"But how am I _here_?" Elsie asked again, as though giving extra weight to the last word would help the two pirates understand her meaning. "I don't _live_ here. I live in _Ohio_, not on the Grand Line!" Elsie was getting upset, and as she did so, her earlier adrenaline faded, and all she was left with was searing pain. Chopper noticed, as was his job, and quickly pulled out a syringe filled with clear liquid.

"Don't worry;" he assured her, noticing Elsie's apprehensive stare, "It's just a painkiller. We're not going to hurt you."

"Thank you." Elsie whispered, knowing that she should feel terrified. She did, to an extent, don't read this wrong, but now that she was fully awake, her brain had started to function properly again, and she remembered that there were a lot worse places she could have ended up. Impel Down, for example. Or, equally as bad, Sabaody Archipelago, where she was certain that, in her current state, she'd either already be dead or picked up and sold to a slave shop for easy money by some dissolute pirate or another. Equally as unappealing were the prospects of being fished out of the sea by such characters as Eustass Kid or Trafalgar Law: both of whom had quite the reputations for being ruthless bastards (Kid especially) who most likely would not take as kindly to finding a random, near-death girl who didn't belong in their world to begin with as the good-hearted Strawhats.

Still, though, Elsie had to remind herself that Monkey D. Luffy and his crew were still pirates as well, and despite the kindness she'd apparently been shown while unconscious, Elsie knew she would do well to tread carefully. She hadn't been reading _Treasure Island _for nothing.

"Brook, can you go tell Luffy and everyone that Gianni-san has woken up? And that we'll meet in the lounge to talk?"

"It's 6:30; I'm not sure if anyone but Sanji-san will be up at this hour." Brook commented, but did as he was asked and left the sick bay accordingly.

Elsie watched the tall, colorful blur shut the door behind him before she thought to ask a rather pressing question.

"Uhm, Chopper-san," she said, playing it safe and using the honorifics she'd picked up by obsessively watching Japanese anime, "Have you seen my glasses? I can't see very well without them."

"Your glasses? Uh... they got broken. Usopp's working on them. He's our sniper, but he's really good at fixing things, too!"

A bit nonplussed at the unneeded explanation of who Usopp was, at least until she remembered about Sogeking's bounty, Elsie nodded. "I'll have to thank him."

"Yeah. Now, where's that wheelchair- ah, here it is! I can wheel you to the lounge in this!" Chopper said happily as he pulled out a folding wheelchair that looked oddly familiar. The feeling of familiarity didn't go away when she got out of the infirmary bed, and with Chopper's help, sat down.

"This is dad's post-chemo chair," Elsie muttered to herself, feeling ill at ease at the memory.

"What was that?" Chopper asked politely, but Elsie shook her head, feeling the painkillers that the doctor had administered finally begin to take effect.

"Nothing." Frowning, Elsie tried one more time to pinch herself. "Ow," she winced.


	5. Chapter 5

Watching Monkey D. Luffy stretch had to be one of the most surreal things that Elsie had ever seen in her life. Oh, he wasn't awake: no indeed, Luffy had been fast asleep when Elsie had woken automatically at 6:30. When Brook had announced her awakening to the rest of the crew and subsequently woken many of them up, (with the exception of Robin and Sanji, who were already up,) Luffy had been fast asleep and by now, everyone seemed to know better than to waste time trying to wake him up before he was ready to be awake. No, the reason that Luffy was stretching in his sleep was that, having been placed in an upright position on the sofa in the lounge, Luffy had fallen forward, bending at the waist, and his head had fallen past his knees to rest, straw hat down, on the floor, stretching his neck out most grotesquely.

Elsie couldn't look away. It looked very uncomfortable, but that was the least of Elsie's thoughts. She was fascinated to see the infamous pirate in the rubbery flesh, and was most interested in studying how very little justice the cartoons gave him. His basic features were similar enough: tousled black hair, a scar under his left eye, a strangely large mouth (which was currently snoring fit to raise all hell,) but what Elsie noticed most was how the part of his skin that was currently stretching- namely, his neck,- was looking quite oddly plastic and decidedly rubber-band like, whereas the rest of him looked like any normal human's skin.

It was weird to think that Elsie had never been able to imagine Luffy as anything but a cartoon, and yet here he was before her, looking as real (if a bit surreal) as herself. It was almost enough to let her forget that she was currently being examined by the rest of the Strawhats while she sat in the very same wheelchair that her father had used after his extensive chemotherapy sessions all those years ago.

She was abruptly brought back to what passed for reality when Robin spoke gently. "Are you Gianni Elsie?" She asked. Abruptly, Elsie stopped staring at Luffy and looked to the rest of the Strawhats.

"Yes," She said quietly. "But how did you know that?"

Robin picked up Elsie's leather purse from a sidetable, reached inside, and pulled out Elsie's school I.D. "This." she answered simply.

"Oh."

"Who are you, exactly?" Nami asked brusquely. "Why did you fall from the sky?"

Elsie looked at her feet, wondering how exactly to reply. Since Ohio didn't exist in the world of One Piece, Elsie figured that the next best thing was to use what she knew already as well as her predilection for making up stories to spin a convincing tale for her piratical hosts.

"I'm... from a sky island." She began haltingly, straining to remember even the tiniest details of what she'd been told since she woke up. "I'm... I'm a student. I'm not associated with the World Government, or any pirate crew, or anything, I'm just a student. A student who... fell off the edge."

"But how did you get so injured?" Robin prompted, leaving Elsie desperately scrabbling for a logical explanation. More than scrabbling, she was trying to remember what had _actually _happened to get her this messed up. And it was all hazy. Elsie squinted across the room at the lazily swimming fish in the enormous aquarium, trying desperately to remember.

"I don't know." She finally admitted. "I can't seem to remember. I was going to Martin's and then... I don't know. I'm sorry."

"There was a lot of damage to the skull," Chopper said, abruptly switching from cute small child mode to scarily smart doctor mode. "The memory loss could be caused by a concussion."

"Forget that," Nami said (to which Elsie couldn't help but offer a small smile at the well-timed pun,) and pulled from Elsie's purse what remained of the wad of cash Elsie's mother had given her for groceries. "What's this money? It's not Beli, and I don't think it's Extol, either."

"It's... um... Ohian currency?" Elsie tried timidly. She'd never been great at improvising, but at least she could keep track of her lies, if she concentrated. "The... the sky island I lived on is called Ohio. We're normally pretty... isolated from the rest of this world. Even from the other sky islands."

"Oh! That makes sense." Nami said smoothly, pocketing the money without hesitation or permission. Elsie, lightheaded, confused, and glassesless as she was, didn't notice.

"Wait, didn't she say that she'd seen wanted posters of u- uuuhhhh... of you guys?" Usopp piped up, with an ill-disguised save mostly designed for Chopper's sake.

Elsie looked at him. Without her glasses, the long-nosed sniper was not much more than a very tan, orange-clad blur, but even so she could discern the newly-attained muscles on his bare chest. Realizing she was probably staring, Elsie looked down primly and cleared her throat.

"Mostly isolated doesn't mean we don't occasionally get big important bounty posters and news coos. The Enies Lobby incident was probably a lot bigger than any of us can think."

"It was bigger than anyone knows, sis." Franky suddenly said, with ice in his voice. "They were saving Robin that day." He grinned sloppily at Robin, as if to remind her. "And I helped."

Robin looked at the man coolly, an unreadable expression in her dark eyes. "Yes," she agreed. "You did help." Elsie got the impression that the woman was controlling her inner smile with great grace.

"Well, um, I'd really appreciate it if you guys didn't... you know, kill me?" Elsie tried, breaking up the almost tangible tension between Robin and Franky. Elsie involuntarily recoiled when Sanji took her hand in both of his.

"Of course we won't, Elsie-chan!" He said, his cigarette waggling with each word, blowing smoke into Elsie's face. She coughed and made a face. She hated the smell of cigarettes.

"Do you have to smoke that, Sanji-san?" She asked, trying to wave away the smoke with her free hand.

Sanji's face fell, but he bounced back quickly. "You're so delicate, Elsie-chan!" He praised. Elsie could practically see the hearts in his eyes. She quickly withdrew her hand from his grip.

"It's not our decision to make." Zoro spoke up finally. "We have to wait for our Captain to decide."

All eyes returned to Luffy, who snored loudly.

Sanji took a long drag on his cigarette before extinguishing it in the ashtray. "Oi, Luffy, wake up: it's time for food."

Elsie was skeptical that such an approach would work in real life, but true to his character, Luffy sprang up, bright eyed and already drooling.

"Breakfasttime?! All right!" He clapped his hands together enthusiastically, dancing around and making clapping noises with his sandals as he raised each foot. He paused when he caught sight of Elsie. "You!" he exclaimed. "You're the girl who made it rain food and then fell out of the sky!" Suddenly he looked very agitated. "I-I-It wasn't me who broke your glasses, it was a sea king!" he fumbled. Elsie could hardly bite back a smile. Luffy was a terrible liar. Instead, she did her best to look in awe and perhaps a little afraid.

"Monkey D. L-Luffy-san!" she stammered convincingly. "Please don't hurt me, I fell by accident! Let me stay on your ship until you get to the next island with a marine base on it, please!" She clapped her hands together and bowed, though it hurt her sore ribs and she heard an unpleasant crackling sound. Chopper pushed her back upright quickly.

Luffy stopped panicking for a moment and considered. "Will you share your food?" He asked.

Elsie paused. _Could it really be that easy?_ She wondered. "Of course," She said.

Luffy grinned. "Really? You're nice, you can stay!"

"Thank you, Luffy-san." Elsie's smile was genuine.

"Sanji! Where's breakfast?!" Luffy shouted.


End file.
